Participatory video as a means of capturing community perspectives on rainwater management
4. Key message/highlights
Rainwater management interventions in Ethiopia have historically been implemented in top-down fashion without due regard to the needs, aspirations, constraints and livelihood realities faced by local farming communities. Participatory video through which local communities plan and shoot their own video accounts of the issues as they see them could help to bring local perspectives to the attention of decision makers.
Short abstract(150 words) including:
Participatory video (PV) has been used in a range of contexts to empower communities to tell their stories. The passing of the camera to the community allows farmers to decide on their own story line around a particular issue. Participatory video can yield positive dividends through development of a community driven product - the finished film. However, experience shows that the process itself can empower communities and catalyse change at local level. In the NBDC projects we are using PV to capture baseline perspectives of local communities on the key challenges to rainwater management in our project sites. We hope to follow up with further PV exercises as the project progresses to see how perspectives change. We also plan to use PV as a way of connecting local communities to our local innovation platforms. We anticipate that the use of film will bring additional energy to such platforms and help to redress power imbalances between communities and decision makers at local level.
Your preliminary highlights for the Forum capitalizing sessions
Your message at local, regional and/or global level
Participatory video can contribute to bridging the gulf between rainwater management issues from a community perspective and decision making at higher level.
Your key target audience (researchers, practitioners, decision-makers)
2-Pager Abstract Template for NBDC Contributions to South Africa Forum
1. Authors
Authors names: Alan Duncan, Beth Cullen, Katherine Snyder and Peter Ballantyne
Project Number: N2
E-mail address of lead author: a.duncan@cgiar.org
2. Forum session
2. Core TWG: Learning to Innovate
3. Title
Participatory video as a means of capturing community perspectives on rainwater management4. Key message/highlights
Rainwater management interventions in Ethiopia have historically been implemented in top-down fashion without due regard to the needs, aspirations, constraints and livelihood realities faced by local farming communities. Participatory video through which local communities plan and shoot their own video accounts of the issues as they see them could help to bring local perspectives to the attention of decision makers.
Short abstract (150 words) including:
Participatory video (PV) has been used in a range of contexts to empower communities to tell their stories. The passing of the camera to the community allows farmers to decide on their own story line around a particular issue. Participatory video can yield positive dividends through development of a community driven product - the finished film. However, experience shows that the process itself can empower communities and catalyse change at local level. In the NBDC projects we are using PV to capture baseline perspectives of local communities on the key challenges to rainwater management in our project sites. We hope to follow up with further PV exercises as the project progresses to see how perspectives change. We also plan to use PV as a way of connecting local communities to our local innovation platforms. We anticipate that the use of film will bring additional energy to such platforms and help to redress power imbalances between communities and decision makers at local level.
Your preliminary highlights for the Forum capitalizing sessions
Participatory video can contribute to bridging the gulf between rainwater management issues from a community perspective and decision making at higher level.
Researchers and development agents.